


you're all i need to breathe

by piggy09



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 20:05:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11630925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: “I dream about you sometimes,” Sarah says.“I know,” Helena says. “I can feel it. Sometimes.”





	you're all i need to breathe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChaoticHeroine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaoticHeroine/gifts).



It’s been a minute or so since either of them talked. The silence should be uncomfortable; it isn’t. Sarah could stay in this tiny whitewashed room for a long, long time, watching Helena look around the room – look at Sarah – smile – look away again. Everything smells like wood and beeswax. Sarah should leave; she doesn’t. She doesn’t feel the need to.

What a thing. She doesn’t feel like running. Something is broken, probably.

Or maybe something is fixed, but she can’t linger on that thought for too long or her throat closes up and her heart aches. She picks, a bit, at the edges of her nails. She feels the steady weight of Helena watching her.

“I dream about you sometimes,” she says – and it doesn’t fill the silence, just slides in along the edges of it. The silence holds.

“I know,” Helena says. “I can feel it. Sometimes.” Her hands are over Sarah’s hands, pulling them apart from each other. Helena’s hands are rough, and warm. They aren’t Sarah’s hands. They should have been Sarah’s hands. Sarah’s heart still hurts, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Sarah flips her hands in Helena’s hands so that all four hands are holding each other. “I missed you,” she says.

“I missed you also,” Helena says. “It has been long time. You were busy, with island and Rachel and Neos. I was also busy, with woods and Hendrixes and Neos.”

“I shoulda,” Sarah says, and stops. She watches the tangle of their fingers. She misses Helena so much – not now, but all the moments before this now when Helena wasn’t there. All the times Sarah has been alone when she wasn’t supposed to be alone. A breath makes its shuddering, clumsy way out of her mouth. She doesn’t say anything else. The silence holds.

Helena tugs on their hands, a little bit, something strange and childish about the gesture. Sarah scoots forward obligingly – and then gives up, comes forward all the way, sits next to Helena with her back to the headboard and her head on Helena’s shoulder. She listens to the sound of her breathing go rough and teary.

“I have to go,” she tells the warm clean-smelling fabric of Helena’s cardigan. “More Neo shit.”

“So many shits,” Helena says quietly. Sarah laughs. Snot all over the black fabric; great, wonderful, bet Helena is so happy Sarah’s here.

“I am glad that you came,” Helena says, like she can read Sarah’s mind. Maybe she can. Sarah wouldn’t be too surprised at it.

“Yeah,” Sarah says, “yeah – yeah, me too. You wouldn’t believe how glad I am, Helena. I’m so – happy, that you’re okay—” She runs out of words. She knows Helena knows the rest of them. Helena hums, once, bumps her head against Sarah’s head. Sarah closes her eyes and lets exhaustion seep heavy through her bones and out into Helena’s bones and then – wherever Helena puts all of it, she’ll take care of it, Sarah can let her take care of it.

“You can’t stay?” Helena says. “You need sleep, _sestra_.” Sarah can’t tell if Helena’s voice is brittle with hope – those first three words – or if that’s just Sarah’s own misplaced need.

“Wish I could,” she says. At some point she’s dropped Helena’s hands and she finds one of them again, splays her palm flat against it and watches Helena figure out the game of fitting their fingers together. “Maybe, uh.” She stops. “On the way back?”

“Yes,” Helena says, immediately. “There are rooms. We can do the sleeping overs.”

“That’s not the word, meathead,” Sarah says, smile tugging at the edges of her mouth.

“I know,” Helena says. “But you smiled.”

The silence curls up around the two of them, warm and soft as the lamplight on whitewashed walls. Their fingers fit together perfectly. Their fingers fit together just the way they’re meant to.

“I have to go,” Sarah says again.

“Then go,” Helena says, sounding amused. “You can always come back.”

Sarah knocks her foot against Helena’s foot. Helena knocks her foot back. Sarah pulls herself out of her own exhaustion piece by piece, her hands on a rope. She follows the rhythm of Helena’s breathing. She thinks about it: coming back here after they find whatever terrible Neolution bullshit they find, and sitting on this bed again, and telling Helena: _sometimes I feel so heavy I think I’m going to drown_. And Helena saying: _I used to feel this, but now I don’t anymore. Someday you will feel the way I feel. Go to sleep_.

And then Sarah will just – go to sleep, Helena a shield against the inevitable morning. Nothing will go wrong. Neolutionists won’t burst into the convent in the middle of the night. Helena’s water won’t break. Sarah won’t even have nightmares. It’ll all be fine.

Helena is humming something, at the edge of Sarah’s hearing. Sarah has no idea what song it is. She catches the sound of it in her hands and uses it to pull herself back up again.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll dive in deeper, deeper for you  
> Down to the bottom, 10,000 emerald pools  
> Under water  
> Time is standing still  
> You're the treasure  
> Dive down deeper still  
> All I need is you  
> You're all I need to breathe  
> -"10,000 Emerald Pools," BØRNS
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


End file.
